Black Freethinkers

A History of African American Secularism

By Christopher Cameron

A history professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with research and teaching interests in African American and early American history, including slavery, the antislavery movement, religious and intellectual history. Black Freethinkers: A History of African American Secularism traces the long history of black humanism, atheism, and agnosticism from the early 19th century to the civil rights era.

Christopher Cameron suggests an alternative origin of nonbelief and religious skepticism in America, namely the brutality of the institution of slavery. He also traces the growth of atheism and agnosticism among African Americans in two major political and intellectual movements.

Paperback, 257 pages.